Blog - Who Still Supports TARP?

The banks are back to making record profits and paying out big bonuses to their executives. Unemployment is still stuck at around 10 percent. More than a year after its creation, who still supports spending more TARP money to support the banks?

The Senate yesterday gave TARP a check-up. They took a vote on an amendment from Sen. John Thune [R, SD] to prohibit the Treasury Department from giving out any more TARP money and require all funds that are paid back by the banks to be used for lowering the national debt. More than half of the Senate voted in favor of it, but it didn’t overcome the 60-vote threshold it needed to pass.

Every single Republican and the two Independents in the Senate voted in favor of ending TARP. Most Democrats voted against the amendment.

13 Democrats crossed the aisle and voted with the Republicans to end TARP:

Sen. Evan Bayh [D, IN]
Sen. Mark Begich [D, AK]
Sen. Michael Bennet [D, CO]
Sen. Russell Feingold [D, WI]
Sen. Dianne Feinstein [D, CA]
Sen. Blanche Lincoln [D, AR]
Sen. Ben Nelson [D, NE]
Sen. Bill Nelson [D, FL]
Sen. Mark Pryor [D, AR]
Sen. Jon Tester [D, MT]
Sen. Mark Udall [D, CO]
Sen. Jim Webb [D, VA]
Sen. Ron Wyden [D, OR]

View the full roll call details here.

Interestingly, if you look at the original vote on approving the TARP program last year, you’ll see that five of the Democrats who originally opposed the program actually switched their position and voted yesterday to continue it. Thirty-three Republicans voted in favor of establishing the TARP program last year. The 25 of them who are still in the Senate switched their position yesterday and voted against it.